An Unwanted Chance
by Amarie and the Inexplicable 3
Summary: Something has (once again) gone wrong in the Lifestream, and as a result two former enemies (of a sort) meet again. On their way to solve their mystery, they soon find that life two hundred years in the future is a bit different.
1. Prologue

_Prologue ~ Some Deserve it More Than Others_

The elevator stopped with a ding and flash of yellow lights, and the President boarded on the thirty-first floor. 

As the empty car rose, he tapped his foot impatiently; the ride would have seemed spectacular to one experiencing it for the first time, but for the employees in the building, it was boring and unnecessarily long. The panorama of Midgar spread out beneath; a thousand small lights twinkled in the darkness below the plate, a pretty sight to those who had never been there. The President did not look at it. 

Absorbed in his thoughts, he did not notice until nearly twenty minutes had passed that the elevator was still rising. He punched a button on the control panel. Nothing happened, which was not surprising, as this happened to be a nightmare. His cellphone produced nothing but static and the emergency call button seemed to be jammed. And the elevator was still rising; he could feel it moving, but the spectacular view never changed, save the great red omen in the sky, which grew, as it seemed, larger and brighter with each passing minute. 

The situation could not be called good; but even alone in the elevator, he maintained his customary cool demeanor. It was only at the end of the second hour, after several attempts to force the doors and loud (but calm, well- spaced, and calculated to save strength) calls for assistance that he began to feel panic. By the sixth hour, he was exhausted and more than a bit desperate. Even the glass would not break to afford him a quick end to the dilemma. As the elevator rose steadily, he thought: I would really have expected something more dramatic... The lights began to flash, as if in respose to his thought, and the elevator ground to a halt, noisily, with a sound as if it had been wrenched from its tracks. There was a second or an hour or so of silence. Then it dropped. 

The nightmare, like most, ended with a crash, a bright light, and, unlike most, a very real, bright, sharp pain. 

---------------------------------------------------------- 

Yuffie leaned over the ledge. "Wow, that's a pretty deep pool... Liquid Mako. Pretty dangerous, that." She leaned a little farther. "Now if I could just reach that..." The clump of rare natural materia wobbled precariously, as did Yuffie on her ledge. "Just a little farther --" 

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author's notes: My very first piece of fanfiction ever! Reviews would be greatly appreciated. However, unlike some people, I will continue writing whether you review me or not. And when you review, _don't_ be kind. I need criticism here! (Although if you just want to say "I think this is the most wonderful thing I've ever read" -- well, I guess that's fine too. Expect revisions, next chapter, and less crappy title soon. 


	2. Chapter One

Oops, I forgot the disclaimer on the last chapter! Are you required to have them? Well, anyway, Final Fantasy VII and all related characters and names are copyright Square. I once thought, poor deluded creature that I am, that I owned them, but then a team of nice men in suits came along and told me I didn't, and took all my money to prove the point. So no, I don't own them.  
  
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An Unwanted Chance ~ Chapter One  
  
_'Principio caelum ac terras camposque liquentis  
lucentemque globum lunae Titaniaque astra  
spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus  
mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet.  
inde hominum pecudumque genus uitaeque uolantum  
et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aequore pontus.  
igneus est ollis uigor et caelestis origo  
seminibus, quantum non noxia corpora tardant  
terrenique hebetant artus moribundaque membra.'_  
  
-- Vergil, _Aeneid_  
  
The sun rose over a landscape that had changed very little since the last days of Midgar. Although the ruined city had at first been swarming with rescue teams, escaping residents, and looters, they had all eventually left. Within a week after the historic defeat of Sephiroth by the resistance group AVALANCHE, Midgar was consumed by the raging fires started deep in the lower levels of wreckage and its atmosphere was poisoned by the toxic discharges of the ruined reactors. Although the environment had recovered quite a bit since then -- almost unreasonably fast, as if some benevolent power were aiding its recovery -- and plant life was fast encroaching on its outskirts, very few had dared to approach the ruins for all the two hundred years since Meteor.  
  
This group, however, was different. The first expedition to attempt to enter the heart of Midgar was busily occupied with pitching camp and setting up cameras and scientific instruments. Standing at the end of a path blazoned through the debris and rubble on the outer edge, Professor McAdams, the Fearless Leader of the expedition, gathered several of the other members for their first foray into the city. After much preparation, roll call, and a short speech to the camera, they set off towards the one clear landmark -- the partially-collapsed but still imposing Shinra Building.  
  
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_Am I dead now? That must have been a pretty long fall.... Too bad I blacked out before I hit the lake. It might have been kind of interesting. On the other hand, drowning in Mako isn't -- _wasn't _exactly on my list of Fun Things To Do Before I Die, ha ha.  
  
I wonder if it's really true that you can't take your stuff with you? 'Cause I really hate to leave my materia collection. Well, old man Godo'll probably sell it, make some money to turn Wutai around... it's not like a disembodied spirit has much use for it anyway.  
  
..............  
  
....................................  
  
Gawd, I think I've run out of stuff to think about. I hope being dead isn't gonna be this boring all the time.  
  
...................................................  
  
Wait a second! This is like in books and stuff when the hero is blacked out and he thinks about how he's dead but he really isn't and then he wakes up! Which must mean--  
_  
Yuffie opened her eyes.  
  
"I'm not dead!"  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
When he came to, he was lying on the floor of his office. _(Why am I lying on the floor? I don't remember fainting.)_ He got up, painfully, dusted himself off, and made his way over to the desk, (_I'd better get back to those project reports or I may be getting another visit from Hojo...)_ noticing neither the gaping holes in the floor, nor the thick layer of dust on everything, nor the fact that the entire front part of the room had fallen in. As if in a daze, he sat down on what remained of the plush executive chair and started to shuffle through papers and forms that should have disintegrated long ago.  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
Five hours after their outset, the explorers had already reached the bottom of the Shinra Building. Now they were sitting on the piles of rubble, staring at the sight which not even many of the looters after Meteor had seen -- the shattered glass doors, the broken neon signs, and above them, the blackened, disintegrating tower where once the most feared men in the world had planned the destruction of the planet. Fifteen stories up, a skeletal arm and skull, formerly belonging to a worker trapped within sight of escape by the collapsing ceiling, rested on a windowsill. The cameramen raced around filming the scene and capturing the first reactions of the explorers.  
  
_click.... whirr_  
  
"What's your plan now that we've reached the Shinra Building, Professor?"  
  
"Well, the laboratories that were inside the building may be too dangerous to enter without protective clothing, so on our first trip, we're going to try and find the President's office, which was on the top floor."  
  
"What do you think you'll find up there?"  
  
"We hope to be able to recover some artifacts both there and along the way. We may even find the President himself -- according to most sources of the day, his body was never recovered. But mostly, we'll be observing and recording the state of the building before anything is moved. It really is thrilling to see with your own eyes the same sights that Tifa Lockhart-Strife described in her account. There have, you know, been rumors of ghosts haunting the city, but I doubt we'll find any of those."  
  
The camera shut off with another click, and McAdams went to gather the team for the next part of the expedition. Armed with flashlights and cameras, they made their way slowly into the ruin, all aware that they were making history.  
  
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author's notes: Alright, so my quote isn't really that relevant. But it sort of fits, and I wanted to use it, so.... um, yeah. Thanks to all the people who reviewed the first chapter! I'm glad that people did actually read it. I think it's going to be coming in chapters about this length, so please tell me if you think it's too short. Writing fanfiction is loads of fun, though I'm not that good at it. All I ever wrote before were essays for school, never any fiction. I have most of the story all planned out... although the category says romance, there won't _too_ much romance in it -- apologies to those who like fluff. If you liked this at all, you should read Wakizashi's "Fragments" (). It's part of what inspired me to write this fic.


	3. Chapter Two

Final Fantasy VII and all related names and characters are property of Square. 

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**Chapter Two**

Yuffie had hardly had a chance to examine her surroundings when she heard the explorers on the floor beneath her. Looking over the edge of a convenient gaping hole in the floor, she saw them coming up the corridor, talking excitedly. She strained her ears to hear what they were saying. All she could hear were fragments of conversation: "...amazing that the building's lasted for two hundred years... valuable artifacts, like the old materia... tuna last night..." 

She frowned. _Two hundred years? I know weird things happen when Mako's involved, but this is just too --_ Her attention was recaptured by a fragment of conversation coming from the end of the procession passing under the hole: "very excited about seeing the president's office... what? No, I don't know what he's hoping to find. Maybe treasure of some sort? They say there was a hidden -- Watch what you're doing with those pickaxes, you idiot!" 

Yuffie waited no longer. She set off at top speed to reach the top floor ahead of the slowly moving procession. As she was two levels above them already, this was not hard. All the way there, she speculated about what kind of treasure could possibly be up there. _Money? Jewels? Materia, even? Or maybe he was talking about a treasure of knowledge... Much better be materia._ She reached the door at last, breathless and anticipatory, and barged in, regardless of the eerie atmosphere which the archaeologists felt so clearly. 

"Right then! Let's see about this... Holy _crap_!" 

There was Rufus Shinra, erstwhile president of Shinra Inc., sitting at a partially-melted desk feverishly filling out forms. He did not react at all either to her entrance or to her exclamation, but continued with his paperwork as if there was no tomorrow. Yuffie goggled for almost a full minute until she was alerted by noises from below that the expedition was nearing their goal. Forgetting all about the mythical treasure, she dived behind a pile of debris just before the door opened for a second time. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------- 

The expedition had had incredible luck in being able to reach the sixty-seventh floor, but once there, they discovered an obstruction which prevented any but those who could twist themselves into odd shapes from continuing upwards, and which certainly precluded any bags of equipment from being carried in. Therefore the team was obliged to stop there until they could clear the stairwell. They were not discomfited at all, as they were able to spend the time in unearthing and examining Hojo's containment cells and equipment. 

Professor McAdams and a few others, being fairly fit, decided to go on ahead and take a few photos of the top floors before they called it a day. The expedition had been kept as secret as possible, but news had a nasty way of leaking out all over the place; the leaders were very concerned about looters and treasure hunters, and wanted to document everything as quickly as possible. Once news got out that Midgar was not unreachable, poisonous, or cursed, nobody would be able to stop others entering the city. 

As they climbed upwards, they saw more evidence of the disastrous events that had marked the fall of Shinra. On the stairs leading up to the ruined seventieth floor, there was an old but unmistakable trail of blood; they saw an odd bone here and there, dissociated from its companions. They stopped there and began taking pictures and writing notes. The Professor, leaving these more mundane duties to the others, continued up to the top floor. 

As he climbed the steps, he could have sworn that he heard a scuffling noise, but he put it down to rats and pushed open the door. He was, of course, confronted with the same sight that had earlier stunned Yuffie. Not surprisingly, it had much the same effect on the Professor. He let the door slam loudly, and the figure at the desk finally looked up. 

There was a long silence, during which the Professor stared at Rufus and Rufus gazed back at the Professor as if he had discovered something mildly interesting on the wall behind him. 

Yuffie, watching from behind her pile of rubble, felt uncomfortably as if she were going to sneeze. 

At length, the Professor broke the silence. "E-excuse me, but-" 

"If this is about the meteor, go talk to Reeve about it. I'm very busy, as you can see," -- he gestured vaguely to the piles of paperwork -- "and I need to finish this by tonight." With that, he went back to filling out form A-124. 

"Er, I don't think you understand. You see, I'm here on an expedition that--" 

"I've already told you, I don't have time to see you now. I have all this work to do..." He trailed off, and the formerly expressionless face clouded. "...paperwork... There never seems to be any less of it. How long have I been doing paperwork?" 

"Do you mean you've been here for a long time?" prompted the Professor. 

"No, I..." Just as it seemed that he would say something about why he was there, his face resumed its trancelike expression. "Please leave now." He moved on to form A-125. 

"Wait, I'd like to ask you some questions and--" 

"Oh, and call the secretary in on your way out, will you?" 

McAdams had not bargained for ghosts, and was not quite sure what to do. He didn't want to leave the room or call out for fear the "ghost" would vanish, but he had left his walkie-talkie back where the rest of the group was camped. Finally he decided to surreptitiously snap a few pictures and leave. When he was safely some way down the corridor, Yuffie climbed out of her hiding place and went to stand in front of the desk. 

"Hey!" she said loudly. Rufus showed no sign of recognition. 

"Wake up, you idiot!" Annoyed, she swept all the papers off the desk with one motion and slammed her hands down. "Can you hear me? Earth to Mister frickin' President!" 

Seemingly confused by the loss of his paperwork, he stared back up at her. "Who are you?" Then belatedly noticed his actual surroundings. "What's happened?" 

Yuffie rolled her eyes in frustration. She would gladly have left him here to rot, or better yet, pushed him out of the temptingly broken window, but he might be able to tell her what was going on... "Come on, we've got to get out of here," she said, and grabbed him by the arm and pulled him, unresisting, out of the room. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

Meanwhile, Professor McAdams had arrived back at the place where the rest of the team was looking around, having demolished the blockage enough so that equipment could be carried through. 

"Quick, bring the camera! I've found a ghost!" he cried, sending the rest of the expedition into a frenzy of excitement. Cameras were brought, various instruments were found, and they set off to investigate. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

Yuffie raced down the corridor in the opposite direction from that in which the Professor had come, pulling Rufus, who was still slightly dazed, behind her. At the end of the hall was a small emergency elevator, which must have been the only one in the building still working, its separate generator (so that the President could escape in case of an attack that cut off the power) feeding on the last dregs of some private reserve of Mako. Beside it was some kind of special security device, which looked as if it required an identity card to allow access to the elevator. 

"Can you open this?" she asked. Rufus pulled a card out of his pocket and swiped it in the machine. The light blinked green, and with an awful grating sound, the long-unused door opened, sticking several times. Yuffie got in, and was about to push the button for the ground floor when she noticed that he was still standing outside, looking back along the corridor. 

"Get in the elevator, blockhead! Are you deaf or something?" Showing no reaction to her insult, he turned and entered the elevator. 

"Geez..." grumbled Yuffie, and pushed the button. The doors closed, more quietly this time, and the car began to descend. As it continued downward, Yuffie noticed that Rufus was, unconsciously it seemed, gripping the handbar so tightly that it, being wooden and quite old, had cracked. _What if the elevator _is _broken?_ she wondered. _I am not going to think about that. NOT going to think about it._ To take her mind off it, she rubbed off a section of the grimy glass to afford a view of the outside. _It looks just like it did two hundred years ago. How depressing. At least the sky isn't so full of icky smog -- and it's certainly a lot quieter._

After an interminable wait, during which she heard various ominous creaking and snapping noises, the elevator came to a stop. The doors opened partially, blocked by some obstruction on the outside. They squeezed out and found themselves in a narrow hall leading down to a door. On the other side of the door was a small room apparently for use in emergencies, as it contained several weapons which unfortunately were mosly useless, as they were now under two feet of water. Yuffie did, however, collect a fair-sized stash of materia from a rusty file cabinet. 

Having waded to the other side and swiped Rufus' card several more times to open the security doors, they came out into an alleyway, from where they were able to make their way down from what was left of the plate. "I hope I never see this place again," muttered Yuffie as she climbed over the hundredth broken wall. "Greatest City in the World my foot, it's the Greatest Pain in the -- Hey, there's the road!" 

She fairly skipped down the path leading out of the city. At the end, she turned to look at the remains of Midgar. _Well, I'm glad I didn't come back with them after we beat Sephiroth. This is the most damn depressing sight I've ever seen. I wonder what happened to all Reeve's plans for cleaning up the place and rebuilding?_

Rufus caught up with her and stopped, but did not look back. She had almost forgotten he was there, and now felt faintly annoyed that she would have to ask him for information, despite the fact that he had enabled them to escape unnoticed. At least he hadn't said anything while they were escaping... 

"So, do you mind telling me exactly what you were doing there acting like a zombie from the accounting department or something?" She tapped her foot impatiently. "Come on, I haven't got all day here. And while you're at it, you can also explain why we're both here escaping from perfectly harmless archaeologists even though we're supposedly dead. And why it seems to be two hundred years in the frickin' future. And why --" She stopped short, as the object of her interrogation had suddenly, unaccountably and inconveniently fainted. 

Yuffie restrained an overwhelming desire to kick him and, since there seemed to be few other options, sat down and had a nap herself. 

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author's notes: This chapter is a bit longer, so took me a bit longer to write. I'm still having quite a bit of fun with writing this, and now that I've finished my pseudo-ARF, I can get back to it. I know it's an unusual choice of characters; actually this story was first conceived as starring Aeris and Sephiroth, but halfway through planning it, I decided that that would really accomplish nothing, since so many other authors have done it much better (and worse) than I ever could. Therefore, I substituted the two characters I thought would be the most fun and challenging to write. (In which decision I was helped by a fic which I plugged in the last chapter.) This way, I get both originality and better exercise for my shaky writing skills. 

As always, reviews are greatly appreciated. And if anyone else has written a fic featuring these characters, I'd love to know. 


	4. Chapter Three

Final Fantasy VII and all related names and characters are property of Square. 

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**Chapter Three**

"No! Not the flying zucchinis again!" Yuffie woke with a gasp, and quickly scanned the area for signs of aerial vegetables. Finding none, she relaxed and turned to check on Rufus... 

...who, incidentally, had gone. A small white figure trudging down the road to Kalm about a quarter-mile off indicated where. 

"HEY!" she yelled, and set out at a run to overtake the escapee. Within a minute, she caught up, and yelled "HEY!" again for good measure before setting in on her speech. "Where do you think you're going?" 

"What does it look like?" he replied in a sarcastic tone very different from that of before. "I'm going to Kalm." 

"Well I rescued you, so you can't go anywhere until you tell me what I want to know. And don't say you've got amnesia or something, cause that would just be SO stupid and cliche." 

"Yes, I do have amnesia, as a matter of fact; I can't remember why I went with you in the first place." He quickened his pace, but Yuffie kept up easily. "And I have no idea what either of us are doing here, or why I'm not dead; in fact, I don't actually know that I'm not dead." 

"Some help you are." 

"May I suggest that you leave so you won't have to put up with me anymore? And don't think I'm in your debt; staying there would have made no difference to me at all." 

She thought for a moment, then shook her head. "As much as I hate you, we'll have to keep together if we want to have any chance of finding out what happened just now. I hope you're at least a bit curious about why people are coming back from the dead." 

"........" 

"Fine. Be that way. But you're going to have to get used to having me around. Besides, I have to keep an eye on things in case you try any more evil deeds." 

"Very prudent of you," he muttered. 

"Yes, I thought so... Wait! Are you mocking me?" 

"I wouldn't dream of it." 

------------------------------------------------- 

Two hours later, they arrived in Kalm, dusty, tired, and both extremely annoyed. The road there had looked much the same; Kalm itself was rather different. After the destruction of Midgar, it had been deluged by refugees, who soon made it into a major city. Though nowhere near as big as Midgar had been, it now boasted several skyscrapers and an extensive suburbs. 

"I think I liked it better when it was just a town," moaned Yuffie as they emerged from the confusing maze of streets into a large plaza. Seeing that they were no longer lost, however, she cheered up a bit. "So what do we do now that we're in Kalm?" 

"First we find out if our -- or should I say _my_ -- money still works," said Rufus, employing a tone normally used for explaining very simple things to idiot children. "Then find a place to stay the night. I suppose you'll insist on coming along?" 

"Have you not been listening to anything I say? Yes, I'm coming." She scanned the area. "That looks a likely place over there," she said, pointing to an establishment across the square. 

"_That_ looks like a cheap second-rate motel to me." 

"_Cheap_ being the operative word. You do realize that we have to save our money? What'll we do if it runs out before we can find more?" 

"I suppose you're right. Let's go." 

It was indeed a second-rate motel, and, as it turned out, the only one with rooms in the city. "It's the Annual Historical Festival," explained the manager from behind a huge mug of coffee which was apparently the only thing keeping him awake. "Every year. Big crowds of crazy history lovers. Lots of parties and costume shtuff..." He nodded off temporarily, but woke up when Yuffie jogged his mug. "Mf? Oh yeah... rooms. You're lucky, cause we just had a cancellation. Unfortunately, we have only one bed left. That might not be a problem, but you'll have to share the room with another party, so try not to disturb them." He raised his eyebrows meaningly. Perceiving that both of his customers looked disgusted and outraged, he added, "But we can also provide extra blankets if one of you wants to sleep on the floor." 

"Yes please," said both at the same time. 

Rufus produced a handful of coins; seeing them, the manager choked on his coffee. "Where'd you get these? They're pre-Meteor coins, aren't they? I saw some history nut bragging that he bought one for 2,000 gil!" 

"We don't have any money left from buying them all," lied Yuffie, "so we'll give you one instead of the 250 gil for the night." 

"Oh, certainly," said the manager, pocketing his one coin so they couldn't change their minds and handing over a pile of grayish blankets. "Your room is upstairs -- third on the left." 

Yuffie stomped all the way up the stairs and down the hall. "That was so disgusting the way he was hinting... stuff. Oh, it makes me feel sick." 

"Well, I'm flattered, but I think I have more reason to be disgusted. I can't believe he thought I would be involved with someone like you." 

"Oh, shut up." She opened the door to a large room with several beds; all but one were occupied by sleeping vacationers. She dumped the blankets on the floor and flopped down on the empty bed. "Good night, and if you try anything I will seriously kill you." 

"Wait a second. I'm the one paying for this, so you sleep on the floor tonight. Get off the bed and take your blankets." 

"Are you kidding? I'm the lady here, and besides, I deserve to sleep on the bed. Who rescued you from a bunch of dangerous archaeologists?" 

"If you hadn't, you wouldn't even have a roof over your head right now. You should be thankful that I even let you stay." 

"Oh yeah?" 

They argued for another half-hour; eventually, they just pushed the occupant out of one of the other beds so there would be two, and went to sleep grumbling about each other's stubbornness. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Next morning... 

Having been woken up bright and early by an irate and rather stiff hotel guest, Yuffie drew up a plan for further action. It ran as follows: 

1. Find a shop and sell the old money to some sucker.  
2. Find a history book so we can figure out what's been happening while I was dead.  
3. Get something to eat... No, make that number two.  
4. Figure out what else to do.  


Looking over her shoulder, Rufus remarked sarcastically, "It's fortunate you're along; I would certainly never have spotted such blindingly obvious things to do on my own." 

"So excuse me for wanting to plan clearly! You obviously have no planning skills anyway, seeing as you made such a huge mess of everything last time we were alive, getting Midgar attacked by monsters and all that..." She trailed off, looking back. Rufus turned abruptly and headed for the door. "Oh, sensitive, are we?" she said cuttingly. He closed the door behind him with a bit more force than usual. On reflection, Yuffie felt a little bit guilty for having said that... but not too much. Besides, now she could finish her planning in peace. Humming happily, she took up her pencil again. 

They met some time later outside the motel; Yuffie toyed with the idea of apologizing for her earlier remarks, but discarded it on the grounds that they had been true anyway and he'd probably just use it as an excuse to insult her again. Having sold most of his money to a dumbstruck antiques dealer, (while Yuffie spun an implausible yarn about having dug it up on some island south of Mideel) they procured a form of breakfast from a drab cafe and made inquiries as to the nearest library. 

"Take the bus from the next corner," said the bored girl behind the counter, "the one with all the crazy people in costumes on it. The library's right next to where the festival's being held." 

"Thank you!" chirped Yuffie, now feeling on top of the world after two dubious eggs, a doughnut and a mug of heavily sugared tea. At the bus stop, though, she had a worrying thought: "What if someone recognizes us?" she wondered aloud. 

"First," replied Rufus, "I doubt if anyone will recognize _you_, and second, has it not once occurred to you that at this festival there will be dozens of people dressed as historical characters walking around?" 

Yuffie felt rather stupid to have missed that fact, so she grumbled, "I never thought I'd be an historical character... it makes me feel too old." 

"Get used to it, then; it seems you'll be one the rest of your life if we never find a way to get back," was the reply, which she found less than comforting. 

At this point, the bus arrived. As the cafe girl had said, it was filled with "crazy people in costumes," which unnerved her to no end; especially disconcerting was seeing several people dressed as members of AVALANCHE. A red-headed woman dressed as an obscure figure from the history of North Corel complimented her on the realism of her costume. 

"Where did you get the shuriken?" she gushed. "I've been looking for one just like it for my costume, but you simply can't get weapons from Wutai these days..." 

"You mean you wanted to dress up as me... uh, Yuffie?" asked Yuffie. _This is very freaky..._

"Oh yes, dear, but I doubt I could ever do as well as you. Why, you look just like her pictures! Not that there are many, though; have you ever seen the one of her with the noodles and that mechanical moogle? That's a real personality coming through... you don't get that often from old pictures." 

"WHAT?" gasped Yuffie. "I ordered Cloud to burn that! Oh, he is in so much trouble when I get back..." She stopped, seeing the woman's surprised glance. "Er, just, y'know, keeping in character and all that," she explained nervously. "I, um, think you really need to... to _understand_ people's characters... um, like what they would say and... stuff like that." 

To her relief, the other accepted the explanation. "Oh yes, I think so too. And you certainly do a wonderful job of it, too! It's nice to meet someone who really gets into their role." 

"Uh... thank you." _Are these people _all_ half crazy?_

The bus stopped at their station with a jerk, and most of the occupants poured out. On the steps of the imposing and brand-new looking library a crowd was milling around; in the larger square in front several booths selling old artifacts or holding trivia contests had been set up. Though the fair looked enticing, Yuffie resignedly followed Rufus into the library. 

Inside it was cool and much calmer; a long line of people snaked around the sides of the large central room. They seemed to be waiting to get into a door on the right; a sign above proclaimed that the attraction was a special documentary showing during the fair, and its title -- "A Study of the Shinra Period and the Fall of Meteor." 

"Hey, let's go in there!" said Yuffie. "We might find out something about what happened afterwards." Rufus seemed to think it would be a waste of time, but allowed her to lead the way to the end of the line. In about five minutes, the doors were opened and the audience took their seats in a small auditorium. The lights dimmed, and the documentary started. 

It was an hour long, and for the most part told them nothing they didn't know already; ironically, it focused mostly on the Shinra Corporation and featured as a rare and precious find rescued from an old TV station a fifteen-minute propaganda video of Rufus himself making a speech, which both of them had seen many times and found extremely boring (and in one case, unpleasant to remember). 

"Now will you just let me find the information we need?" said Rufus when they emerged, annoyed at having lost an hour. "I didn't think I could watch that speech one more time and make it through alive." 

"I make a point of not giving boring speeches," Yuffie retorted. "_My_ legacy won't be one of sleep-inducing documentaries." 

"That's because you don't have one." 

"Hmph." 

--------------------------------------------------------- 

Amalie ("Emmy") Barton emerged from the darkened auditorium a few steps behind our quarreling heroes, notebook clutched to her chest, and stood for a moment blinking in the strong light. She was a history student at a college in another town, and had taken advantage of the holiday break to come and see this same boring feature. Always eager for more chances to learn about her ancestors, the branch of the family her relatives liked to keep quiet about, she had thought it most interesting. 

She wondered if she should talk to some of the attendees in costume; they tended to do quite a lot of research into their chosen characters, and might have some insights... Looking around, she spotted a likely one -- a young man seemingly dressed as the infamous giver of boring speeches was walking away at a brisk pace towards the wing where books on history were kept... She hurried after him. 

She lost him momentarily among the shelves, but spotted him again facing away from her at the end of an aisle. As she approached, he said in an annoyed tone to someone around the corner: "No, you idiot, we do _not_ need books on the history of bubblegum, I don't care how "neat" they are. You're wasting time. We're looking for the post-Meteor period." 

_Oh good, that's very close to what I want to know about. These people really do go in for realism, don't they? Even to the point of imitating voices. Kind of creepy, really..._

"Excuse me, I'm doing some research on the Shinra period and I..." She was startled into silence momentarily when he turned round. _It's unbelieveable! He's got the exact same face -- maybe he's a distant relative!_

"What is it? I'm very busy right now and -- What are you staring at?" 

"Oh, I'm sorry! It's just that you look so much like... like..." 

"Rufus Shinra? Yes, I can see why you would think that. Considering..." A girl with an armload of books came running round the corner and collided with him and with Emmy, sending all three sprawling on the floor. 

"_What_ are you doing?" he snapped at the girl, who was also, Emmy saw, in costume as one of the lesser-known members of AVALANCHE -- she couldn't remember which -- complete with a dangerous-looking symmetrical bladed weapon which Emmy was sure must be illegal. 

"You told me to make it snappy, so I made it snappy and look where it got us," replied the girl cheerfully. "But while you were chatting up girls, I found all these useful books! And there's all these tables where you can sit down. Let's go over there, cause my feet ache now." 

"Er, would you mind if I came with you? You see, I'm doing some research, and I'd like to ask you a few questions." 

"Fine," muttered the young man irritably, getting to his feet. "We've got all the time in the world, I suppose. Being dead." 

"Oh, don't mind him," said the girl, helping Emmy up. "He's just snarky like that. We haven't introduced ourselves, have we? I'm --" she thought, as if deciding on something -- "I'm Yumi! And this rude guy over here is Ru- er, Rude- um, Rue! Yeah! Like the herb, you know." 

"Yuf- I mean, Yumi, you have a very uncreative mind. That must be the worst false name I've ever had," said "Rue." 

Emmy blinked. These people were very odd... should she really be getting mixed up with them? But the girl Yumi had her by the arm and was already pulling her towards the reading tables, so she supposed she had no choice now. She sat down across from the pair of lunatics or, possibly, over-zealous history buffs. 

"Well, I guess I should introduce myself now. My name is Amalie -- Emmy -- Barton, and I'm a history student from Calintz. Um... the reason why I was so surprised to see you is that I thought you might be a relative of mine. I'm a distant descendant of the Shinra family, you know, from a sister-in-law of the original president of the company, so..." 

"Wow!" said Yumi. "What a coincidence! A descendant! Should we tell her?" 

"I think so," replied "Rue". "My relatives were always worthless, but they may be able to provide us with more information and they're probably too spineless to sell the story." 

"What?" gasped Emmy. "So you are a relative after all! Are you a criminal or something?" 

"You might say that." 

"Now... now look, just because we're related doesn't mean I'll help you evade the law! I should go!" 

"I don't think you get the point," said Yumi. "Probably, you know, because we haven't told you yet." 

"All right," said Emmy, determined to carry this through even if it meant risking being in the presence of these lunatics, "what is the point?" 

"The point," said "Rue" in exasperation, "is that this is not a festival-goer, but the real Yuffie Kisaragi. Whereas I am an actual relative of yours, but one you probably don't want to know -- meet Rufus, your third cousin fourteen times or so removed." He sat back to observe the effect this would have. 

Emmy stared and gave a slight gasp. She remained motionless for almost thirty seconds, apparently trying to say something. 

"Hey, do you think she's breathing?" worried Yumi/Yuffie. "Should I poke her or something?" 

But Emmy recovered herself at that. "I - I can't believe that! You're talking about time travel! It's impossible and completely made up!" She jumped up and backed away from the table. "I'm... I'm going to call the police if you try anything, so you have one chance to give me some sort of proof." 

"What do you want? Voice patterns? DNA samples? I must warn you, though, if you have tests done and anyone finds out, you'll probably be put in prison for 'helping' me." 

"Wh- what?" she quavered. "Well... don't you have any other way of proving it?" 

He handed her the remaining pre-Meteor money and the identification card they had used to escape Midgar. Emmy looked closely at the money, then scrutinized the card, holding it up to the light carefully, as if she were afraid it might break. "This is a genuine Shinra Inc. identification card! And it does have your photo on it... and it does say "President" in big letters --" 

"Just in case I ever forgot who I was." 

"-- and you can't really forge these things, their security features were made with some old technology that's been lost... So I suppose," she said slowly, giving the card back, "that you really are genuine... I never thought I'd meet a third cousin of mine, especially not one who was fourteen times removed and a legendary figure of oppression." 

"Life's little surprises for you. So, shall we go somewhere more -- private," he looked around at the curious readers sitting at other tables, "to discuss this further?" 

"Oh... Er, yes, I guess we can go to my aunt's apartment. That's where I'm staying, but you'll have to go before she comes back on Tuesday -- I don't think she could handle the shock. I'm not handling it too well myself..." 

"Don't worry," said Yuffie, extending a supporting arm, "I felt that way too when I realized I wasn't dead. Kind of like drowning in fluffy cotton candy, huh?" 

Emmy blinked again. 

"Don't do that, Yuffie, you'll drive her mad with your insane chatter before she can tell us anything," said Rufus. 

"Oh... oh I'll be all right," Emmy said, "but I'm really looking forward to an explanation of all this." 

They used Emmy's card to take out the history books (incidentally, the books were never returned and Emmy would some years later be quite distressed when she received a letter informing her of her 300 gil debt to the Kalm library.) and boarded the bus once again -- there's item four on my list completed, thought Yuffie as she settled into a drowsy nap in her seat. 

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author's notes: I hope this chapter is better than the last; as you can see, the humor aspect is becoming more and more evident now. It's been a month since the last chapter -- a bit of a long wait, but inspiration held off until last week. I've been writing other things instead, though, and I hope to get some of those up. Reviews are more important on this chapter because this is going to be the prominent style for most of the story (as planned so far) and I want to know what you think of it. The month-long wait helped, though; I've been reworking my plans for the later parts and getting a better image of what I want in general. And as for Emmy's real name -- no, this is not a self-insert, that's a completely different name that I just happened to like. 


	5. Chapter Four

Final Fantasy VII and all related names and characters are property of Square. 

------------------------------------------------- 

**Chapter Four**

Emmy's aunt's apartment was small, with nondescript furniture and seven cats, who had a monopoly on the seating when they came in. As Emmy went to put away her books, Yuffie faced down one of the felines for possession of a squashy armchair. 

"Yuffie, just pick up the cat and put it on the floor. There is no earthly reason for you to be offering it a trade-off," said Rufus, who had already evicted three cats from the sofa. 

"Shush," said Yuffie. "I do things my own way." She turned back to the cat, a black-and-white spotted specimen. "So, you're gonna play it rough, huh? Nothing doing with my brand-new shiny All materia? Right then, get yourself ready to battle for supremacy!" She launched herself at the chair with a ferocious growl. The cat, startled, leapt up and darted under the coffee table. "Ha!" she said, sitting down triumphantly. "Chicken, are you? Well, I'm here anytime you want to try it again, tough guy. Yeah, you heard me!" 

"Congratulations, Yuffie, you've just conquered a ratty armchair. Did you pick it because of the unusual recliner?" 

"What?" said Yuffie, leaning back. The back of the chair fell off, sending her tumbling head over heels into an umbrella stand. "Ouch," came an echo from inside the stand. 

"I warned you." 

"Since you're in a charitable mood, then, why don't you help me get this umbrella stand off my head?" She struggled to pull it off. "Wait, did I just hear you laugh? That would be a first... Hey! Can you hear me out there? I could suffocate in here, you know!" She banged the umbrella stand against the wall. 

"Don't do that, you might dent the umbrella stand." 

"HELP ME GET OUT OF THIS THING, STUPID!" 

"Oh fine." 

He pulled the umbrella stand off and set it carefully on the broken armchair. 

"That took you long enough. All my work for nothing... Were you laughing at me?" she asked suspiciously. 

"Not at all." 

Emmy returned to find her guests sitting at opposite ends of the sofa; Yuffie was rubbing her head painfully. 

"Oh, I'm sorry, I ought to have warned you about that chair. We never use it, but we keep it because it was one of the few things our family recovered from the Shinra headquarters in Midgar and it's a kind of heirloom..." 

"Wonderful, Yuffie. That was probably my only remaining asset -- we might even have been able to get the price of a lunch out of it -- and you just broke it." 

"Ah, it was probably worthless. Not even the most fanatical antiques collector would want that thing." 

Emmy propped the back up with the umbrella stand. "It's always been broken. But we do have some other things that were salvaged; people come around and ask us to sell them, but my aunt isn't desperately in need of money." She sat down on another chair across from the sofa. "So would you mind explaining what you're doing here?" 

The story was short, as it spanned all of a day and a half, and did not fluster Emmy nearly as much as the initial revelation. 

"Well," she said, "I don't know that I can help you, since I have things to do... I have to go back to school in two days. You're trying to get back to that time period?" 

"That's right!" said Yuffie. 

"If it's really something supernatural, Cosmo Canyon might be the place to go, but they aren't letting anyone in these days. Besides, you won't be able to go there for another month or so -- there's been an epidemic of some disease in the neighboring villages and the whole area is off-limits for a while. Why don't you try going to Junon? That's where the government operates from and there's a lot of research facilities there; you might find out something." 

"Wow, that sounds like a good plan. Thanks!" Yuffie said happily. Rufus looked skeptical, but said nothing. 

There was an uncomfortable silence; nobody knew what to say next. Finally Yuffie remembered her list. 

"So what happened to everyone? I guess you know, right?" 

Emmy explained the fates of the people they had known: Cloud and Tifa had gotten married and had some descendants living in Icicle Village; Cid had become the first man in space and consequently gotten several public buildings named after him ("Now that's a weird thought," Yuffie mused); Barret and Marlene had returned to North Corel; Red/Nanaki and Vincent had disappeared from the public eye after Meteor; and Reeve had been instrumental in the forming of the new government. Cait Sith could now be seen in the Gold Saucer museum. The Turks had worked as hired hitmen for a while, then Reno had gotten on a boat sailing west and never come back ("Sounds just like him," said Rufus) and Rude and Elena had started a very successful weapons manufacturing company. 

"What does it say in the book about us? I am in there, right?" asked Yuffie. 

Emmy looked it up. "It says here that you disappeared at age eighteen during a scouting trip in the mountains and were mourned by all of Wutai for two years. Apparently there's a minor monument to you there. The present ruler of Wutai is descended from one of your cousins." 

"Well, what do you know. Never thought they'd miss me." She spoke lightly, but Emmy could see that her former high spirits had been a bit damped. "So," she changed the subject, "can we stay here tonight before your aunt comes back tomorrow?" 

"All right," said Emmy a bit reluctantly. "There's only one spare room, and it has a lot of stuff in it, so there's not much room -- one of you will have to sleep on the couch." 

The inevitable argument resulted, and the upshot was that Yuffie ended up sleeping on top of boxes with a spare blanket in the storage room and Rufus got the couch. 

"So _that's_ the reason he gave in so easily -- how was I supposed to know there wasn't a bed in here?" she grumbled, shifting uncomfortably to alleviate the pain caused by the ornate lamp digging into her leg. "Note to self: never let your rival leave the room for a glass of water till the matter's settled." She rolled over, trying to find a more comfortable position on the lumpy boxes. Eventually she gave up and jumped off the boxes to roam around the apartment a bit. 

"I think I saw some ice cream in the freezer..." Passing through the living room, she observed Rufus sleeping peacefully on the couch. _Curse him._ Then a wonderful idea came to her -- an idea so sublime she felt it would be inexcusable not to act on it. 

As you may have guessed, Yuffie rarely suppressed her genius. 

On with the plan, then -- but first she consumed the tub of ice cream she found in the freezer to supply much-needed energy. Then, finding a coil of rope, a cymbal, and a particularly ugly porcelain ornament in the storage room and a box of pepper in the kitchen, she set to work. When it was done, she stepped back to admire her work and grinned evilly. 

"Revenge at last! Morning's going to be fun..." 

Thus Emmy awoke to the sound of a crash, a clang, and fits of sneezing from the living room and hysterical peals of laughter from the spare bedroom. As she hurriedly dressed, she heard a yell of "YUFFIE! *achoo* Don't DO that!" and a responding fit of giggles before Yuffie replied, "Sorry -- heehee -- but -- BWAHAHAHAHA!! -- Ahem. Sorry, but you had it coming to you, tricking me like that!" 

"Just get a broom, you miserable miscreant, and clean up all this pepper!" 

"Okay, okay. You don't need to get all mad about it. Gosh, some people have no sense of humor. And --" she giggled -- "could you not use alliterative insults? It makes me laugh even more." 

Emmy emerged to find Yuffie sweeping up the last of the pepper and Rufus trying to put the ugly porcelain ornament back together. 

"Er, what's going on?" 

"Oh, everything is just peachy," Yuffie assured her. "Don't worry." 

"Oh... okay. You're sure everything is all right?" 

"Fine. Just fine. Yuffie's natural... exuberance got out of hand," said Rufus in a tone which was not reassuring at all. 

"You have to admit it was funny, though," said Yuffie. "At least a little bit funny." 

"All right, so maybe it was a little bit funny. But not nearly funny enough to stop me from wringing your neck if you ever try it again." 

"See, I knew you'd agree." 

--------------------------------------------------- 

Emmy's aunt was returning in the afternoon, so they set out that morning with a packed lunch from Emmy, who had told them how to get in touch with her and promised faithfully not to tell anyone. Since funds were limited, they had elected to travel on foot, despite Yuffie's pleadings for taking a train. Unfortunately, villages had disappeared or grown up in different places since they had been around last, and though Rufus had once known the route to Junon fairly well, come nighttime there was not a house in sight. 

"That's strange..." he said thoughtfully. "There used to be a village somewhere around here." 

"Well that doesn't help, does it?" grumbled Yuffie, who was geting tired, owing in part to having stayed up all night before. "What are we going to do now?" 

"Freeze, that's what we're going to do." 

"You are perhaps the most depressing travel companion I have EVER had. Can't you even once say something completely untrue yet comforting, like 'Everything will work out for the best'?" 

"And what good would that do?" 

"None," said Yuffie, "none at all. Is that a pile of rubble I see? Brings back memories." 

"Those must be the ruins of the village that used to be here." 

"Any un-ruined towns around here?" 

"Not that we could reach tonight. We'll have to stop in here." 

"Oh great. If you had just listened to me, Mister I-Know-Everything, we would be there already, in a nice warm inn having dinner. Instead we're out in the freezing cold in the middle of nowhere and I only have one sandwich left!" 

The ruins were fairly old, and only one or two buildings were left standing. One of these actually had a roof, so this became lodging for the night. All the windows were broken and cold wind whistled through the room, save for one corner which had a shelf built in such a way that it blocked the wind. 

"Right, I get behind the shelf," said Yuffie. 

"And why would that be? I've already decided that _I_ get the spot behind the shelf." 

Ten minutes later, Yuffie was behind the shelf, triumphant, and Rufus was on the other side. 

"Yuffie?" 

"Mf... whatsit?" mumbled Yuffie, who had been about to doze off. 

"Don't you get the feeling that there's some sort of pattern here?" 

"No. What are you talking about?" 

"Never mind. You wouldn't be perceptive enough to spot if there were one." 

"Stop insulting me and go to sleep, you blockhead." 

------------------------------------------------------- 

Breakfast was the one remaining sandwich, which Yuffie grudgingly shared after agonizing about it for half the night. Within two hours, they had reached the edge of the marsh, where they managed to catch only one chocobo -- meaning Yuffie was left on foot. 

"Just a few minutes longer and I'll spot one!" she pleaded, rubbing her Chocobo Lure materia in an effort to get some luck. 

"A few minutes longer and we'll be here till nightfall. Either get on this one or run alongside." 

"Fine, I'll run." She kept up well for a while, being a good runner, but then abruptly tripped over her own feet and fell to the ground. When she recovered enough so that her surroundings were no longer spinning round her head, she looked up to see Rufus looking back down at her with a very readable "what a pathetic idiot" expression. 

"Just a few more minutes?" The expression shifted to a heavy emphasis on "idiot". "Oh fine, but we have to stop every once in a while. Unless I have my own chocobo and go really slow, I get motion sick and hurl all over the place." 

"If we see a chocobo along the way, we'll stop, but we have to get going or we won't make it to Junon today. Oh, and you might want to stand up before trying to get on." 

"Shush. I know perfectly well I'm lying on the ground. I was just... practicing." 

She climbed up on the chocobo, and the journey proceeded, albeit with frequent stops so Yuffie could get off and stagger around clutching her stomach, moaning about how sick she was and how she didn't think she could stand another minute on the chocobo without hurling. 

When Junon came in sight, it was twilight. Yuffie slid off the chocobo and lay down, moaning even louder. 

"I'll never get on a chocobo again, I forgot how much I hate those things... never never never." 

"Since you seem so comfortable, I'll just leave you here and go on ahead, shall I?" said Rufus. 

"No wait! I'm coming!" She suddenly forgot how sick she was and remembered how hungry she was. "And I'm going to eat a ten-course dinner when I get there! Chicken and potatoes and soup and carrots and apples and steak and fish and..." 

Coincidentally, the only inn in sight had one bed vacant. They were both too tired to argue, so Yuffie went back downstairs and yelled at the manager until he admitted that he had an extra bed. 

"What were you talking about with a pattern?" she asked through the thin wall before going to sleep. 

"Nothing, it was just an idea. Forget it." 

And night fell for the third time in this chapter alone. 

---------------------------------------------------- 

author's notes: I'm a bit fuzzy on the geography of this area, so please forgive any mistakes. Can you see any pattern? I wonder what it is... The story is coming along nicely now; I've been writing quite a lot lately so the next chapter may even be coming soon! (Don't count on it, though.) 


	6. Chapter Five

Final Fantasy VII and all related names and characters are property of Square. 

------------------------------------------------- 

**Chapter Four**

Apparently the new government was not nearly as powerful or rich as Shinra had been -- Junon was still much the same, though life in the lower half seemed to have improved quite a bit. The old lift was still there, with the same computer security system, simply modified for a different power source. Surprisingly, a plaque was affixed to the side indicating that it was an historical landmark. 

"So, are we going to break in?" said Yuffie excitedly. 

"No, we are not going to break in. We have a perfectly legitimate pass." Rufus held up the identification card. "This used to work in Junon as well, and if they haven't completely replaced the computers, it should still get us in." 

"Ooh, can I try it?" She grabbed the card, earning a glare from its owner, and inserted it into the slot. After a short wait and some whirring noises, it popped back out and the doors opened smoothly. "That's so cool! Are you sure we won't get arrested or something, though? For going in without permission?" 

"As far as _I'm_ concerned, I still have a perfectly good right to be here. Besides, we can always pass ourselves off as ghosts. If they're so protective of historical landmarks, they may well have kept all those awful portraits of me, so you can hide somewhere and I'll frighten people off by pretending to have come out of one of the paintings." 

"One question: Why were all the paintings so awful?" 

"Apparently we killed off all the good portrait painters in Junon before I got here." 

"Oh. I should have known. I thought for a moment you were actually showing some kind of humility." 

"Who, me? I'm surprised at you." 

They boarded the lift going upwards. 

------------------------------------------------------- 

At about the same time, the bored girl who monitored the entrance and exit records happened to glance up from her manicure at the screen for the first time in an hour. She scanned the list of entrances, and her eye lit on a strange one -- "President? What the heck?" She called over her supervisor, saying, "Look, it's doing weird things again -- there's no card that would say that. Plus, it says the last time the owner of the card came in was two hundred years ago!" 

"I keep saying their computers are obsolete," said one of her co-workers. "But do they listen?" 

The error seemed harmless, but just in case it had been a forged card that had caused it, they set the alarms to go off if it happened again. With that, they all went back to their work and completely forgot about it. 

------------------------------------------------------- 

"So what now?" Yuffie wondered, looking around the corner of the hall before dashing to the other side stealthily. 

"We'll have to hide somewhere till night and then try to use the card to gain access to any files that might help. Will you stop that?" 

"What?" 

"Darting back and forth, walking along the walls, and looking around all the corners. You're extremely conspicuous -- even the thickest janitor would suspect something, seeing you run around like that." 

"But it's fun! Like being in a spy movie!" 

"Have it your own way, then, but if you get locked up I won't bother stopping to get you out." 

"Hmph. Not like I would be stupid enough to expect someone like you to do that." She spotted a large pair of double doors. "What's in there? Looks like some kinda big ballroom --" She opened the door a bit wider. "Cool! Can we hide in here? There's this big table with a long tablecloth and all these curtains... ooh, there's a piano too! I wonder if I could hide in a piano?" 

"A supply closet was more what I had in mind," said Rufus flatly. 

"A _closet?_ You think I'm going to spend the entire day sitting in a _closet?_ No way. I bet nobody ever comes in here anyway, what would they do in this place? I'm hiding in here." 

"You do that. I'll be in the nearest closet, and don't complain to me when you get caught." He left, closing the doors behind him, and Yuffie snorted and went over to have a look at the table. Within thirty seconds, though, he came back in hastily. 

"Changed your mind, eh? I knew you'd agree with me after seeing the closets round here --" she began, but he cut her off. 

"Hide, quickly! There's someone coming down the hall!" There ensued a brief scramble for hiding places, at the end of which they both found themselves under the large table. 

"What--" Yuffie whispered, but she stopped abruptly as the doors opened and several maids came in. Peeking under the edge of the cloth, she saw that they were opening the curtains and dusting off various things. 

"So you say there's a big party tonight?" came a voice from near one of the windows. 

"That's right -- with music, dinner, the whole thing. They're going to close off this hall for the rest of the day because of all the preparations. Oh, Janey, be a love and dust those paintings for me -- you know how my back is." 

"You can do it just fine, there's nothing wrong with you." This was presumably Janey. "You're just scared of a silly superstition." 

"It's not silly! I went out with Mike who works for that magazine last week and he said definitely that there were ghosts haunting that building in Midgar -- he told me that someone had seen the ghost of Rufus Shinra himself, all transparent and carrying lots of chains and uttering fearful prophecies. Who knows, maybe that painting over there'll come to life one night and haunt us all!" 

Yuffie sat back from the edge of the cloth, shaking with barely suppressed laughter. With a terrific effort she recovered herself and turned to look at Rufus, who looked just as bored as ever. _Oh well._ She turned back to listening. 

"-- and there'll be a hundred and fifty people! Imagine that! The biggest party there's been in my time!" 

"A hundred and fifty... sounds like potluck night in the church hall," muttered Rufus scornfully. 

"Look out, they're coming in to set up the security cameras for tonight," said one of the maids, and they left the room in a body. Noises of equipment being unloaded came from the hall, but from the cursing that accompanied them, it was evident that the cameras were going to be a while coming. Rufus took the opportunity to look out from under the tablecloth, then turned (as well as one could turn under the table) back to face Yuffie. 

"Do you realize," he whispered angrily, "that now we'll have to stay under this table for the entire day? Once the cameras are in here, we won't be able to do anything, much less move to another room. I hope you're happy." 

"Hey, it's not that bad under here. I've been under worse tables before." 

"_You_ may have, but hiding under tables has never been a hobby of mine, for some reason." 

"Well, we'll just have to settle in and hope they don't take it into their heads to change the tablecloth. Besides, there may be a chance of swiping some food. I'm starving already." 

Rufus was stopped from delivering a scathing reply by the advent of the crew with their cameras, which they set up around the huge room and then left to watch for anything suspicious. They were followed by decorators, more maids, nervous government officials who popped in every now and then to check on things; the parade seemed endless, and after five hours Yuffie felt tired, hungry and very bored. She amused herself for a while by popping a materia orb out of her bracelet and rolling it back and forth on the floor, till Rufus, whom she had thought was asleep, suddenly picked it up, pocketed it, and seemingly went back to sleep. After that, she made faces at him for a while longer, but even this amusement wore thin eventually. 

Finally, at eight o' clock, she saw food being put out on the table, and shortly the guests began to arrive. She had counted forty when she became aware that Rufus, far from being asleep, had somehow come into possession of half-a-dozen hors d' oeuvres, which were laid out in a neat line on a napkin. 

"Hey! How'd you get those? Can I have one?" she whispered, to which he replied, "I've found it a useful skill to cultivate, but if you want any, you'll get them yourself," and finished by eating them all himself. 

Yuffie was incensed at this, and spent the next half-hour seething while waiting patiently for opportunities to grab food off the table; she succeeded in getting enough to satisfy her hunger, which calmed her down a bit. Watching feet walk back and forth and listening to random snippets of conversation paled after a bit, so she started rolling another materia around on the floor, making sure to keep it away from her companion. 

Unfortunately, this meant that she rolled it a bit too close to the edge, and soon she was cursing under her breath as she watched her materia roll away across the dance floor, somehow avoiding being kicked or stepped on, and come to rest against the far wall under a curtain. 

"How much longer is this damn party going to last?" she moaned. 

"In my time," said Rufus in a tone which clearly said that his time had been far superior, "they always ended at eleven." 

"Do you think it's eleven now? I'm sick of being under this table." 

"If my watch isn't broken -- which it may very well be -- it should be ten-thirty just about now." 

"Ohhh, I don't think I can take another half-hour of this. Couldn't you do a ghost act and frighten them all away?" 

"By rising up with a tortured cry from behind the soup tureen? Hardly a terrifying spectacle." 

"No? I guess food just isn't the right thing to create that spooky atmosphere." She sighed and leaned back against a table leg. "I hope nobody takes my materia from under that curtain..." 

Finally people began to leave; when the last dish had been cleared and the room had been tidied and the cameras taken away, Yuffie rolled out from under the table. 

"At last! Ow, my back..." She stretched, and went to scope out the hall. 

"Aaugh! The door's locked!" 

"What?" 

"They've locked it! We'll be stuck in here the rest of the night! Nooooo! And just when I thought I was going to escape!" she wailed. "I'll die in here and never see the light of day again!" 

"You'll just have to go out a window and open it from the outside. There's a very convenient ledge just outside and an open window next door." 

"Why me? Go yourself." 

"I don't climb out windows. Besides, isn't it more in your line?" 

"Well... what if I just run off and leave you in here? Then how will you get out?" 

"I'll be in the exact same situation, except without you, which would be an improvement anyway. And since I have no intention of going over there, it'll be your fault if we both get caught." 

"You #@$^* weasel!" yelled Yuffie, employing a bit of Cid's extensive vocabulary. 

"Funny," said Rufus, wandering over to the other side of the room, "that's just what the Commissioner of Public Safety said when I told him the last free hospital in Sector Four was being sold to make way for the standard paying program of healh services... Quite shaken up about it, he was. And I believe your friend... Barret, was it? ...also used the same words on the occasion of his capture..." 

Fuming, Yuffie climbed out of the window and onto the ledge outside. She started to edge along the outside, but the old stone facing was crumbling with the years, and with a crack, a crash, and a stifled scream, Yuffie was soon hanging by one hand off a particularly sharp architectural detail halfway between the windows. Below her, the sea washed up against a pier three hundred feet down. 

As humiliating as it might be, Yuffie had just made up her mind to yell for help, when Rufus appeared at the window. "What are you doing out there--" He caught sight of her predicament and stopped short. 

"Shut up and help me, idiot!" Yuffie gasped. "This is your fault anyway!" 

"Well, if you hadn't insisted on looking in here, none of this would have happened..." He pulled down one of the curtains and knotted it into a makeshift rope, with the aid of which Yuffie was able to let go of the ledge. For a tense few seconds she hung on the rope, scrabbling for a foothold against the stone wall -- then she found one and pulled herself up and through the window. She sank down on the other side, breathing heavily. 

After a brief apparent inner struggle with the mandates of coolness, Rufus brought himself to ask, "Are... you all right?" Yuffie observed that at close range he looked rather more worried than she had thought while hanging outside the window, but she was too angry to care. 

"Oh sure I'm all right! I just almost died by falling seven stories into the rocks, but that's no matter! I'm just fine!" Yuffie coughed; she could feel a cold coming on. "How nice of you to ask!" she continued sarcastically. "Seeing as you were the one who nearly sent me to a cold sharp death, of course you have my best interests at heart!" 

"And it had nothing to do with your idiotic curiosity that got us trapped in here, first under a table for twelve hours, and now overnight with no way of escape? Or the fact that you've done nothing but get us into trouble all day? Or your complete ineptness, which has now cut off our only way to get out?" 

"Shut up," said Yuffie, and sneezed. "I think I'm getting sick." 

"If you had listened to me in the first place, we'd be back in the inn by now." 

"Do you think I have a fever? I feel really really cold but my face is all hot... maybe it's the flu. Could you hand me the tablecloth? I'm freezing." 

"Leaving the tablecloth in a wrinkled heap on the floor would be too suspicious." 

"I don't care, I just need to get warm!" She sneezed again as a cold breeze wafted through the windows. "It's not my fault that I don't have any warm clothes!" 

Rufus scowled at her. "Why I'm doing this, I'll never know..." He took off his outermost jacket and tossed it to her, revealing... another one just like it underneath. "Don't wrinkle it." 

"How many layers do you _wear?_" asked Yuffie incredulously, wrapping the jacket around herself. 

"I get cold, all right?" 

"No need to be touchy about it... Um, thanks." 

"Just don't sneeze on it or anything. It's not like I can get another one now." He sat down against the wall a couple of feet away and closed his eyes. 

"So, what are we going to do now? Just wait till next time there's a party?" 

"No, of course not. There's..." He trailed off, apparently asleep. 

"Hey! Don't go to sleep! What's the plan?" Yuffie said, but she received no reply. "Fine, then, just leave me in the dark about everything..." She gathered the borrowed jacket around herself a bit more tightly and tried to sleep in between fits of coughing. 

---------------------------------------------------- 

author's notes: Done! *dances in joy* I'll be starting school on the eleventh (*sobs*) so chapters may slow down after this one... but hopefully I'll still be able to do at least one a month. On the other hand, does anyone care? *crickets* I thought so. Good, now I can take my time... next chapter, say, in April 2004? What do you think? lol... Actually, I'd keep writing it even if nobody wanted it; the story kind of drags me around, making me do its will... don't complain to me, I'm just the author. 


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